Looking Backwards
by galia-carrot
Summary: On the fifth anniversary of Trip Tucker's death T'Pol, Archer and a geriatric beagle have an early morning heart to heart on the porch.


**So I'm down in Kyeongju and have had literally no muse for anything for like a week and then all of a sudden I'm in the car on the way here this morning and this just pops into my mind. Thankfully it stays there and I pounded it out in about an hour.**

 **I really love Archer and T'Pol's friendship, it's really important and I've always kind of felt that following Trip's death and the decommissioning of Enterprise that Jon would probably get promoted and T'Pol would probably teach at the academy for a while and they'd stick together. I like the thought of the two of them living together, neither one really ever getting married or moving on and sticking together through their old age and a half dozen beagles.**

I woke up from the same dream:  
Falling backwards, falling backwards  
'Til it turned me inside out.

Now I live a waking life  
Of looking backwards, looking backwards;  
A model citizen of doubt.

\- "Pluto" _Sleeping at Last_ _ **Atlas Year One**_

"Porthos?" Jonathan Archer calls, turning on the light. It's 5 am and usually by now the elderly dog has woken him at least once to be taken outside, but tonight he's slept through. In panic Jon gets out of bed, pulls his sweat pants on backwards and begins to look through the apartment. His first thought is to check the bathroom, in his old age Porthos has a habit of peeing on the bathmat when he can't make it outside, but the beagle isn't there and the bathmat is dry. His panic rises as he checks the small laundry closet, where Porthos sometimes sleeps in the laundry, only to find that empty as well.

"Porthos?" He calls again, pushing the door to T'Pol's room open carefully so as not to wake her. To his surprise T'Pol's bed is empty but unmade, not a habit she often keeps. Jon frowns, Porthos doesn't usually wake T'Pol when he has to go to the bathroom at night and her door is usually latched.

"T'Pol?" He calls, looking around for his Vulcan roommate. He spots her on the balcony just off the kitchen, sitting on the swing, her feet tucked under her and her back to him. He opens the door and steps out into the cool San Francisco morning. "T'Pol?" He says after another moment, she seems so drawn into her thoughts that she doesn't notice him.

Pulled from her thoughts by his saying her name she turns and looks at him. "You're up early."

"Could say the same for you, where's Porthos?" He asks, it's then he notices the elderly beagle curled up against T'Pol's leg and she doesn't seem keen on moving him.

"With me." She mutters, looking back out at the city and motioning to the dog, Jon takes a seat next to her and Porthos, the dog opens one eye to look at him but doesn't move from his spot.

"How long have you been up?" He asks, frowning at her.

"An hour, possibly more, Porthos heard me get up and needed to be let out, so I came with him." She says, finally turning to look at him again. "I'm sorry if you were worried about him."

"No, it's fine… and it's not him I'm worried about anymore." He says, studying her face, he may not be as good as Trip was at sensing T'Pol's emotions but he could definitely tell when something was bothering her. "It's you I'm worried about."

"Why? You have no reason to be concerned about me." She sips her tea and he can tell from the way her mouth twitches that it's gone cold.

"You're woke up at 3:30 in the morning and have spent an hour and a half on the balcony with my elderly beagle, you didn't notice me come out and your tea has gone cold." In his mind, that's plenty of reasons to be worried about her. "And you never let the tea go cold and you don't get up until 6."

"And your beagle is geriatric not elderly." She mutters, setting her tea on her knee and raising her eyebrows.

"Fair enough, now what's been bothering you so much that it woke you up at 3:30 am?" He says, studying her face a bit more, she tilts her head towards the horizon, which has begun to turn a lighter color with the pending sunrise. It's a subtle hint but her reason dawns on him.

"Oh." He says quietly.

"It's been 5 years today."

"Yeah it has…" There's a moment of silence between the two of them.

"His mother is going to call. She always calls." T'Pol finally breaks the silence, her voice soft. "She'll want to speak with me, and –"

"And you don't want to speak to her." Jon finishes, he knows that while T'Pol has no problem with Elaine Tucker she still doesn't want to talk to her on the day that Trip was killed. "She's worried about you."

"She has no reason to worry about me." T'Pol mutters, sipping her cold tea again.

"I'm worried about you." He says again. "You've never done this before." Sure the anniversary of Trip's death seemed to hit her hard every year it had never been quite this obvious how badly she was doing.

"You're not a Vulcan." She says simply.

"What does being a Vulcan have to do with grief?" He asks, resting his hand on Porthos's back.

"A lot actually." She mutters. "Especially given the nature of my relationship with Trip."

"You were in love with him, and he was in love with you." She'd never explicitly said it to him, but he'd known, he'd been able to read Trip well enough to know that he loved her and after Trip's death it had become very obvious that T'Pol had felt the same.

"Well… yes." She says hesitantly. "But it's more then that."

"More then love?" Now he's confused, he'd never been sure how much love Vulcans are capable of feeling.

"Vulcans have… bonds, they're telepathic and there are different kinds. The bond between parents and their children are very strong, Vulcan mothers can tell what their child needs before they have to cry and Vulcan children can communicate using touch telepathy and the bond before they can speak. A bond also exists between Vulcan mates, it's similar. Vulcan mates can feel each other's emotions if one doesn't repress them as well, and they very often will share dreams and feelings and can communicate through them." She explains.

"And you had one of these with Trip?" Jon frowns, he'd felt certain Trip would have mentioned it to him if they did.

"Yes, we did. Trip and I could feel one another's emotions, him being human I got them in nearly full force." She explains. "And we could communicate and we'd share dreams or if I was meditating I'd be able to see what he saw."

"You felt his emotions? All the time?" She'd done a damn good job of hiding it if she had.

"Well… yes and no. His emotions were always there in the background, so were his thoughts and if I wanted too or I let my own barriers down I could feel them, but for the most part I didn't notice them in a way that bothered me. And it was always there, for nearly six years I could feel him. It's how I knew he was alive the time he and Ensign Sato were held captive nearly a month by the Klingons." She continues. "But when that bond was severed… it's like having a piece of you disappear. A piece you're not sure you need, you know it's there but you don't really think about it. Until it's gone."

"When it's gone you think about it." He says quietly. "That's not so different from humans, we feel the same way about our partners even if we don't have a telepathic bond."

She shakes her head and looks at him, her brown eyes brimmed with tears. "I-I felt him die Jonathan."

"You, _what?"_ He asks, making sure he'd heard her correctly.

"I-I could feel his fear and his pain and then I felt it all get quiet and him get frantic, he was terrified of that imaging chamber and – and then he was gone. Just gone…" Porthos shifts himself so his front half is on her lap and licks her arm comfortingly.

Jon doesn't really know what to say to that, he'd never really thought about Trip being scared. He'd died to save a little girl, Jon thought Trip would be pretty at peace with that. He'd never really thought about how frightening it must be to die even if it was for something good. "Oh…"

"And every year on the day he dies I swear I can feel it more." She explains. "It's illogical because I know I can't but I'm so sure I can feel him, I'm looking for something to indicate he's still here and it's not happening and it… it hurts."

"It will get better." He offers. "Maybe you need to talk to someone."

"It will not get better." She wipes her eyes and takes a shaky breath. "I don't want to speak to anyone, I'm speaking to you am I not?"

"That's true." He can't help but feel a bit better at that, it's a very typical T'Pol statement, he puts and arm around her and hugs her tightly. "And you always can."

They sit like that for a few more minutes, her crying quietly and him trying to comfort her in the only way he knows how – the human way. Once the sun has risen he stands up.

"Where are you going?" T'Pol asks.

"To call Erika, to let her know neither one of us will be in today." He says, he's not letting her go into work like this but as the morning has dawned he's realized he's not really up for going in either. "They can find someone to teach your class and I really don't need to be at that briefing anyway."

T'Pol follows him into the kitchen and sets Porthos on the floor, he expects her to scold him and say they both need to go in. Instead she goes over to the fridge and opens it. "I'll make breakfast." She says quietly. "We'll have a quiet day in."


End file.
